Tricycle Blog

This illustration is by Liz Whelan and comes our way thanks to Frank Olinsky, our founding art director. The artist describes Buddha Chick as "one of those people who decides to become a Buddhist because she thinks it's cool." Well, we think Liz and her illustration are cool. Click image to embiggen it.
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If you live in California, vote Yes on Prop 2 to stop animal cruelty.
Plus an interestig piece on the history of the AIDS virus going back to the early years of the 20th century. Unfortunately, the virus remains alive and well, all over the world. Speak out, act up. Silence equals death.
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Protests in the Thai capital:
In a day of street battles that left more than 100 people injured, thousands of anti-government protesters surrounded the Thai Parliament Tuesday, trapping hundreds of members inside for more than five hours.
Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat escaped over a back fence in the morning after delivering a policy address.
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Danny Fisher tells us new poems by Tibetan writer and activist Woeser are available. Almost unbelievably, Woeser bravely lives and writes in Beijing, beneath the unsleeping eyes of the government.
You've seen Obamabuddha (probably) -- now how about Yogobama?
And Dogo Barry Graham warns us against practicing Zen without a teacher, in the context of a certain very popular book. His post begins:
Dogen says there is no point in trying to practice Zen without a teacher. Dilettantes and hobbyists do not like to hear this, but it is true.
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Burma's Rohingya Muslim minority, who live mainly in the west of the country by the border with India, are facing extinction according to Cutting Edge News:
A few years ago, the UNHCR [Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] forcibly repatriated at least 230,000 Rohingyas back to Burma, but many have returned, unable to survive in their homeland. One refugee said: “As long as human rights abuses continue in Burma, we cannot go back. We are caught between a crocodile and a snake. Where can we go?” Another expressed their dilemma, and statelessness, equally starkly: “The Bangladesh authorities say we are from Burma. The Burmese regime says we are Bengali.
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Tibet's tourist trade is still feeling the aftershocks of the riots and crackdown despite a government campaign to bring 'em in, according to the International Herald Tribune. (The price tag for visiting the Potala Palace will not go up until May 2009, for example.) Travel analysts, whoever they are, predict big things for China's tourism at some point in the vague and unknowable future (i.e.
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Sometimes when I think things are going my way, they aren’t. And when I fail to notice this it’s usually because I’m not paying sufficient attention. It’s much better to keep watch over events as they unfold than to form doubtful impressions of them. That way I’m given a chance to notice that things aren’t necessarily the way I think they are. The fact is that life refuses to be shaped into conformity with my own hopeful version of events. There’s humility, gentleness, even wisdom that comes with the discovery of personal limits. I know all this, and yet I sometimes forget that my happy imaginings exercise no necessary influence over the way events actually unfold. That’s when I’m most likely to think I have things under control, failing to notice indications that suggest otherwise.
For three years now, I’ve served as Senior Buddhist Chaplain at High Desert State Prison, a maximum-security prison in Susanville, California. The Buddhist inmates at the prison had been without a teacher for more than four years at the time, and so I was asked if I would please come. I had my plans pretty well mapped out at the time and didn’t really want to undertake another responsibility. Furthermore, High Desert State Prison is on the east side of the Sierra Nevada Range, a two-and-a-half-hour drive from the west side town of Chico where I live. I said I’d think it over.
The decision was taken out of my hands the day I first laid eyes on the prison complex and met the first of my potential students, most of whom are serving life sentences. After passing through the outer perimeter of the prison with its lethal web of electrically charged wiring and after negotiating a seemingly endless series of electronically controlled gates that opened and shut behind me, I finally arrived on a catwalk outside cell C5–218 where I peered through a thin slit of a window at the face of a nineteen-year-old Asian boy who was serving a sentence for first-degree murder and wouldn’t even be considered for parole until he was in his mid-fifties. I told him who I was and what I’d come for. At first he seemed confused by the information, wondering what my appearance at his cell meant for him. But then, he suddenly brightened, a smile breaking out on his face, and he asked, ”Are you my teacher?” And without a thought for the consequences, I said, “Yes, I’m your teacher,” “Are we going to have Buddhist services?” “We’ll have services,” I told him. And so for all my plans to the contrary, life had turned me in a direction the difficulties and blessings of which I could never have foretold.
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The Epoch Times (founded by members of Falun Gong; here's their About Us page) has just concluded its four-part talk with Ms. Zhu Rui, a Han Chinese woman who has spent time in Tibet. It's called "The Distorted Image of Tibet". Don't expect perfect impartiality, but it is interesting:
When we arrived in Tibet, I found that everything was different: the language, the clothing, the buildings, the religious sites—and I liked them all. As I was strolling down Barkhor Street—the busiest shopping street in Lhasa—I was totally absorbed. The earthen jars, the stringed flags, thang-ga paintings, turquoise necklaces, and costumes all amazed me.
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Aid is dwindling for victims of the cyclone who remain extremely vulnerable to another catastrophic storm:
It is five months since Cyclone Nargis tore across the Irrawaddy delta and the city of Rangoon. On the face of it, the catastrophe has been brought under control. After early obstruction by Burma's military Government, a large international aid effort has relieved the worst effects of the disaster and begun the job of rebuilding.
Food, medicines and shelter are flowing into the delta, with no secondary disaster from hunger or disease, as many had feared.
Outside Burma, the catastrophe is a fading memory; after a surge of donations in the early weeks, new funds for aid groups have dwindled to a trickle.
But the cyclone is still doing its damage — to livelihoods, education and health, as well as through the terror lingering in the minds of those who survived it.
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Burma says the sanctions leveled at it are unfair and immoral:
Burmese foreign minister U Nyan Win told the United Nations General Assembly yesterday that Burma could enhance regional energy and food security if sanctions against the country were lifted.
Nyan Win told the assembly during its annual general debate that it was the most vulnerable people, such as women and children, who were worst affected by the sanctions.
“Unilateral sanctions are also against international law,” a UN statement quoted him as saying.
Meanwhile Amnesty International calls out the junta for re-arresting people released just days ago, such as U Win Htein, a 66-year-old close associate of Aung San Suu Kyi.
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[Names added 9/25/08, 9/26/08, 9/29/08, 10/20/08]
When a society comes together and makes decisions in harmony, when it respects its most noble traditions, cares for its most vulnerable members, treats its forests and lands with respect, then it will prosper and not decline...”
- Mahaparinirvana sutra
Whatever your political beliefs, your active informed citizenship is a part of a wise household practice. We are at a critical juncture in American history, with major decisions to make about the global environment, economics, foreign policy and social justice, decisions that will deeply affect all of us for generations ahead.
We urge you to engage, respectfully, and to act on your values: register voters, go to work in swing states, support what you believe to be wise social action and enlist others to join you in your work.
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According to Momofuku chef David Chang, it will taste like veggies:
At the table, this means our plates will be heavier on grains and greens, and meat will shift from the center of the dish to a supporting role--the role it's played throughout history in most of the world's cuisines.
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100 monks staged a peaceful protest in Sittwe in western Burma to mark the anniversary of the crackdown. This mind-bogglingly courageous act will not go unpunished. Cue the jackbooted thugs.
Monks in Pungo are fighting the power too, but here they can use lawyers.
Only Buddhists can now head up the Mahabodhi Society according to a recent rules change. The Society was founded in Sri Lanka but soon moved to Indian soil with the help and support of the Indian government. Critics call the move political and say it will primarily benefit Sri Lanka.
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A 6.0 earthquake hit the Tibet-Nepal border -- where a quake also hit in August. No word on casualties in the thinly populated area.
The Chinese delegation left the Czech parliament building in Prague after the Green party delegates unfurled a Tibetan flag.
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Last night on the anniversary (roughly speaking) of the Saffron Revolution, Tricycle's managing editor Alex Kaloyanides and I were privileged to attend Reading Burma: A Benefit for Cyclone Relief and Freedom of Expression in Burma/Myanmar. The evening was presented by PEN American Center, the Burma Project of the Open Society Institute, and The New York Review of Books. Supporting organizations were Cooper Union, which hosted the event in its Great Hall, where Lincoln once spoke, and Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.
Salman Rushdie gave the opening remarks on behalf of PEN American Center and also read from the poetry of U Tin Moe. Other speakers included Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, who was the U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on human rights to Burma, the Venerable U Gawsita, who was one of the protest leaders, and Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk. A group of Burmese monks reciting the Metta Sutta wrapped things up. It was a great evening with lots of eye-opening footage from the protests and crackdown, and heartbreaking eyewitness accounts from Nargis -- alongside absurd, almost laughable official government reports of the same situations.
The event raised more than $13,000 for cyclone relief. Special mention was made of U Win Tin's release, but of course the struggle continues. Pictures after the jump -- click to see larger versions.
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As the American and Canadian elections approach, there's been much discussion among North American Buddhists over how Buddhism relates to politics. Among many converts to Buddhism, at least those willing to speak publicly on the matter, there's a near unanimity that Buddhists must vote for Barack Obama because he is the only candidate whose views and policies align with good Dharma. The current issue of Shambhala Sun has an article extolling the revolutionary presence of Obama on the Democratic ticket, and while it doesn't explicitly endorse him, the overwhelmingly positive way in which he is discussed leaves little doubt as to where the
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Including the country's longest-serving political prisoner, the writer (and friend of Aung San Suu Kyi) Win Tin. Most of those freed were not political prisoners but rather conventional prisoners. Still it is something. But:
“When the government wants to reduce the pressure coming from foreign countries, especially during the United Nations General Assembly, they release prisoners,” said Bo Kyi, head of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Myanmar.
Some 37 activists have been arrested this month alone, Mr. Bo Kyi said.
Win Tin will continue to wear his blue prison uniform as a sign of protest. He was kept in solitary confinement for most of the nineteen years he spent behind bars.
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